


The One Who Doesn't Belong

by IAmWhelmed



Series: Origami Birds [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Son of Batman (2014), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Confused Jonathan Kent, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne-centric, Detective Conan AU, Hurt Damian Wayne, Jealous Damian Wayne, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24916129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed
Summary: What happened that day at school, the day Damian went missing?
Relationships: Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne, Kathy Branden/Jonathan Samuel Kent
Series: Origami Birds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786054
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	The One Who Doesn't Belong

_ No matter how I screamed out,  
only echoes answered me  
My love, you're something I cannot live without  
Your hand is no longer at the end of the red ribbon  
Nothing is left to connect the two of us anymore  
I tried so hard to hold our cracking love together  
But I crumbled and the shards fell to the floor.  
  
"There's nothing we can do, life is just like that, baby"  
As you said that, someone else's tears dripped down my dry cheeks. _

[ _ \- LeeandLie (Just Be Friends) _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBR7y9rC5Fc)

He’d made his bed that morning, four corners, tucked neatly into folds, every edge pressed and hidden behind the bed frame. School wasn’t something he looked forward to, full of fatuous children, teachers so thick with pretension they walked like puppets with sticks up sewn to their spines, with noses in the air. So childish, so ignorant. He wept for the future.

The good part, though, the part that made all of this a little better, that was Jon. He’d never say it. He’d been quite vocal, actually, about not wanting to go to school with Jon, because he was a farm boy, and he was annoying, and the feeling had been mutual. Jon was equally as dismayed, and he hadn’t been shy about voicing that either.

“There’s no way I’m going! I could  **_teach_ ** the imbeciles there!”

“Hey!”

But he made things okay. Jon knew there was so much more to life than school dances and  _ who asked who out _ and  _ what was hot to wear _ , even if he did enjoy that stuff. He knew that the fate of their world sat in their hands every day. He was more than Robin’s partner; he was Damian’s best friend. The only one who could make last night feel… okay. He bit down the memories from before, the anger on his father’s face, the distrust, and worse-- the helplessness. Like he was a lost cause. He’d checked his watch and slung his backpack over his shoulder. They’d had patrol after class, and the sooner the day was done, the sooner he’d get there, standing over towers, feeling the breeze with no Batman watching him over his shoulder, just Superboy. Just the air. Just them.

So that morning felt like the moments before you prepared to do a chore, but it felt like he wasn’t going to be doing the superhero equivalent of dressing up in a formal suit himself. He’d met Jon at school, found him laughing and messing around with some other kids, and he’d thought to himself that he quite liked that smile. It was white teeth and blue eyes squinting with scarcely contained joy. It was feeling every bit of the sun’s radiance through the lens of one boy, seeing Jon smile felt refreshing like a sip of cold green tea when you’ve been parched. To somebody who lived in darkness, a creature of the night who took to shadows casted by firelight, it was tempting to try and touch where the light reached. Jon had spotted him and that smile had grown a half smaller, but was no less luminous. He’d waved to his other friends, parted ways as they waved back, and joined Damian by his side. “Zack is so funny sometimes. You know he--”

And he’d gone on like that, for a solid two minutes. All Damian could do was nod and pretend he wasn’t paying attention to every word. “So funny. I think Zachary may make a comedian, yet.” Jon had snorted and wrapped an arm over Damian’s shoulders.

“He’ll make a fan out of you, if you’re not careful.” Damian was already a fan, not of Zachary, of course, but Jon didn’t need to know that.

The school day had passed by per usual, with Jon raising his hand and waving it around in the air when he knew the answer to a question, or, inversely, clamming up and curling into his desk like a hermit crab when he didn’t, just to avoid being picked. It was so domestic, so boyish, Damian had hid his smile in the curve of his fist, and glanced out the window he was lucky enough to sit by. Kids liked talking to Jon, he was fairly popular. Stunning blue eyes, killer smile, contagious laugh, of course everyone was smitten. He was horrible at soccer, but they always asked Jon to play during break time, because he was the type to get up, covered in dirt, and grin and huff, but never the type to back down. Made him fun to play with, fun to patrol with, too, not that he’d ever planned on saying that. But still, Jon had always chosen to hang out with Damian when he had the chance, unless he spent break doing nothing but reading up on Charles Dickens. When he wasn’t in that mood, when he found himself seeking company, Jon was always there to offer it. Thirty minutes every day, talking to each other, that was what it was like. Like he’d taken that first sip and he had a whole gallon of green tea to himself. Jon would crack jokes, sometimes Damian would laugh. Damian would tell Jon about something cool he’d managed on patrol with Batman or Nightwing (or the assortment of siblings he had, really), and Jon would grin and tell him that was cool, like he hadn’t seen Robin do cooler in person. Damian had always wondered, kind of, if Jon preferred to be playing with the rest of their class, if he was just being the boy scout he’d always known him to be and keeping him company because he took pity-- he’d told himself, no, that that wasn’t right. That he was traveling down a bad road to a bad place. What his father had said the night before was merely playing with his head. He’d thought it would go away in a day or two. It always had.

But then he’d met with Jon in the hall between bells, right before their last period of the day, and Jon had sighed like some big-eyed Bugs Bunny with his eyes on a carrot, and had he been Superboy at the moment, Damian would have thought he’d be floating off the ground. “What’s up with you, Farmboy? See a pretty horse?” He wished he’d never asked. He wished he’d let the opportunity to mock him pass.

Jon had snapped himself out of his dreamy-eyed gaze at nothing, face turning a heated pink that Damian had felt radiating. “Nothing! I just… Kathy, uh, wanted to talk.”

He wished he dropped it. He wished he didn’t press further, why did he push? Why did he have this insatiable need to poke and prod at the people he cared about until they were  _ gone _ \--? “Oh? She didn’t keep you long, it seems. Though…” He’d glanced at Jon’s face, eyed him up and down, then gave him a smirk. “Maybe she did.”

“It’s-- It’s not like that! Okay, maybe it is.” Why had he asked? Why hadn’t he let it be? “She wants to see me tonight. She said she didn’t want to go to the Corn Festival alone. It’s a super last minute thing, but I think I’m gonna go.” He remembered that moment, remembered that he wanted to tease Jon, flick him in the head, tell him to be careful because girls had cooties, or at least make fun of the absurd idea of a  _ corn festival _ , and he’d found himself incapable. He’d felt something, right there, square in his center, like somebody had reached into the space between his lungs and squeezed him until it hurt. That type of pain, he felt it even thinking about it, now that he remembered it, and it was still so strong that it nearly brought him to his knees like no punch to the gut could ever do. Back then, he’d felt like throwing up, he’d felt like crying, but that was weakness, and he was already weak enough.

“Well, she made a good choice, didn’t she?” He’d scoffed. “No better chaperon than an alien freak.” It was mean, and stupid, and he hadn’t meant it, and that hurt him more than anything else did-- that he’d said something so cutting because he’d failed again, this time to follow his training, to hide what he’d been feeling under professionalism, to never let anyone know what he was thinking. And he’d let his stupid… emotions… surface enough to hurt Jon. He’d hurried on ahead, tried not to pay attention to the way Jon stared after him.

He especially tried not to think about how they’d been meant to have patrol that night, that he’d been dragging through the day to get to that moment when they’d sit at the edge of a Metropolis tower and feel the breeze on their skin.

Jon… wanted a normal life, even if he’d kinda liked the super hero stuff, the world that Damian lived in. He liked hanging out with those other kids. He liked going to festivals. He liked playing soccer and going out with  _ normal girls _ , and Superboy was a costume. He’d said it himself. For Damian, he had no costume. He was either an Al Ghul Heir or Robin, and he had no costume to turn to, not unless he had Superboy at his side. And that was the worst part. That he needed Superboy, and Superboy didn’t need him. Jon didn’t need him.

Nobody did.

Liv and Abner, they’d welcomed him in, they’d put up with his attitudes, even if they’d never known about the blood on his hands. The kids had chased him around and played Detective, but at the end of the day, he was unneeded. Liv and Abner had a life together, and it was small, and quiet, and abnormal in the way that Liv took care of her father more than the other way around, but it was good. And it’d existed without him there. The kids would find another interesting friend, maybe he’d be an actual meta, maybe they’d follow him around, but what was inevitable was that they’d forget about him, too. Because Chris Tathum didn’t exist, and Damian Wayne didn’t belong anywhere, not be Superboy’s side, and not by Liv’s.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this isn't too confusing. I think I should leave this note at the end of every fic in this series from now on just so that it doesn't get lost xD This story is not released in chronological order, but it will be ordered in the series in chronological order.
> 
> This takes places after Wither And Turn Gray, when Damian has regained his memories and left his life as Chris behind for the good of the people he's come to love. I know I said there'd only be one more piece between WATG and BS;LB, but I decided I'd make that a small multi-chapter fic instead of making this the first chapter of that.


End file.
